When more than one radiological examination must be performed on a patient, radiologists often perform a single acquisition procedure to acquire one set of images. The radiologist must then divide the images using a virtual examination split procedure. For example, a doctor may request a chest examination and an abdomen examination. The radiologist may acquire the images for both the chest and abdomen examinations during a single acquisition procedure. This has advantages for the patient, because the patient endures less waiting time and less radiation. The hospital's workflow is also improved because the imaging equipment and examination rooms are only set up and used once. However, the radiologist must manually divide the chest images from the abdomen images by performing the virtual examination split procedure. To manually divide the images, the radiologist must view each individual image and identify the portion of the patient's body shown in the image before determining with which examination the image is associated. The images from a single acquisition procedure must be manually divided into two or more individual examinations before the radiologist or the doctor can analyze and interpret the images.
With the number of images acquired for each examination rising dramatically (e.g., over 1000 images in one examination), it is becoming more difficult to manually divide the images. Also, with new technology, the images may not be in an order that corresponds easily to the individual examinations.